The world is facing a global care crisis that we must address urgently.When children live in unstable family environments or lose crucial family bonds at an early age, it can have irreversible consequences on the rest of their lives.This is what we see in our work, day in and day out.We see it when we meet children like eight-month-old Aleksander and his 10-year-old sister Natalyia, who both live in Ukraine. Tragically, they recently lost their mother who was raising them as a single parent.

Pfizer on Thursday requested emergency approval from United States (US) health authorities to use its COVID jab on children aged five to 11.

United States (US) drugmaker Pfizer said Thursday it has formally requested emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine in children aged five to 11.Children have been infected in greater numbers in the latest coronavirus wave driven by the Delta variant, and inoculating young people is seen as key to keeping schools open and helping end the pandemic.In late September, Pfizer and BioNTech, the German biotechnology giant which co-developed the vaccine, began submitting data to Food and

The Philippines has approved COVID-19 jabs for children as young as 12, an aide to President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday, as the country battles surging infections fuelled by the hyper-contagious Delta variant.Duterte's government has been skewered over the glacial rollout of vaccines, with just over a quarter of the adult population fully vaccinated nearly seven months after the first doses were delivered.The daily case rate has soared, often exceeding 20,000, with hospitals struggling

Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday said trial results showed their coronavirus vaccine is safe and produces a robust immune response in children aged five to 11, adding that they would seek regulatory approval shortly.The vaccine would be administered at a lower dosage than for people over 12, they said."In participants five to 11 years of age, the vaccine was safe, well tolerated and showed robust neutralising antibody responses," United States (US) giant Pfizer and its German partner s

Children in the United Kingdom (UK) aged 12 to 15 are set to be able to get a COVID jab, following advice from the UK's chief medical officers.They have recommended the youngsters should be offered one dose of the Pfizer vaccine.Some other countries have been vaccinating younger teenagers for some time - but approaches do differ.What's Happening In Europe?In May, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the Pfizer vaccine for 12 to 15-year-olds.

Southern Chinese cities closed schools and ordered testing for millions on Tuesday in a race to curb a new COVID-19 outbreak which has sparked concerns over infections among unvaccinated schoolchildren.Putian, a city of 3.2 million in coastal Fujian province, ordered testing of all residents on Tuesday after Delta variant cases linked to a returnee from Singapore ballooned into a province-wide outbreak of more than 100 people.China has now been hit by multiple outbreaks of the highly contagio

United States (US) paediatric COVID hospitalisations have surged since Delta became predominant, but a new study that offers a first look at the relevant data suggests that fears the variant causes more severe disease are unfounded.The paper by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also found that between 20 June and 31 July, 2021, unvaccinated adolescents were more than 10 times more likely to be hospitalised than those who were vaccinated.The health agency analysed hospital r

Chinese pupils returned to school Wednesday with new textbooks peppered with "Xi Jinping thought", as the Communist Party aims to extend his personality cult to children as young as seven and rear a new generation of patriots.The education ministry has said it will incorporate Xi's vaguely defined political ideology into the national curriculum, from primary schools to graduate programmes, at the start of the new school year on Wednesday.Primary school teachers must "plant

Almost half the world’s 2.2 billion children are already at “extremely high risk” from the impacts of the climate crisis and pollution, according to a report from the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The UN agency’s head called the situation “unimaginably dire”.Nearly every child around the world was at risk from at least one of these impacts today, including heatwaves, floods, cyclones, disease, drought, and air pollution, the report said.